Gershon in a CALS kitchen, with a platter of cupcakes topped with his signature "brown butter buttercream" frosting. (Ryan Young / Cornell University) Students Hotelie Aims to Bring Brown Butter to a Dairy Case Near You Stories You May Like Influencer Justine Doiron ’16 Cooks Up Healthy Comfort Food Hotelie’s Line of Plant-Based Fitness Drinks Goes National Alum’s Bakery with a Hollywood Following Hits a Sweet Spot Entrepreneur and ardent foodie Jonah Gershon ’24 launched ‘spekld’ to give home cooks a time-saving flavor boost By Beth Saulnier Savvy chefs know that brown butter adds an extra punch of flavor to a wide array of foods, from butternut squash ravioli to chocolate chip cookies. But making it requires time—and close attention at the stove. “It’s very similar to caramel, where it can be golden brown one second—and then 20 seconds later, it’s burned,” observes Jonah Gershon ’24. “If you walk away for a moment or forget to stir, it can heat up unevenly, so some parts burn and other parts aren’t browned. So people definitely have a challenge with it.” Making his pitch at the 2023 Northeastern Dairy Product Innovation Competition. (Provided) But the Hotelie has an answer: a line of premade sticks of brown butter he’s been developing—with support from the dairy industry and Cornell entrepreneurship programs—and hopes to someday see on supermarket shelves. Dubbed “spekld” (a hip, all-lowercase take on its speckled appearance), the product would give cooks a handy shortcut in whipping up, say, sole bathed in a sauce of brown butter and lemon, or an elevated version of Rice Krispie treats with brown butter and sea salt. Says Gershon: “It adds a really rich, nutty-and-toffee flavor to a lot of dishes.” Competing on "Christmas Cookie Challenge." (Food Network) An avid baker since childhood, Gershon was just 20 when (after gaining notice on Instagram) he was tapped to be the youngest-ever contestant on the Food Network’s “Christmas Cookie Challenge” in 2022. “I grew up Jewish and didn’t celebrate Christmas—so it was an interesting experience to be decorating Christmas cookies on national television,” he recalls with a laugh. “The other competitors were all professionals with their own bakeries and businesses. It was definitely a challenge, but a lot of fun.” It adds a really rich, nutty-and-toffee flavor to a lot of dishes. During the one-episode competition, Gershon pondered using brown butter in his recipe for Mexican hot chocolate sugar cookies, but couldn’t spare the time to make it. That sparked the idea for spekld, which he began developing in an entrepreneurship class as a junior on the Hill. Gershon and his mom host a pop-up sale outside a bakery in his native Connecticut in August 2023. (Provided) That year, he placed second in Cornell’s Hospitality Pitch Deck Competition. He went on to be named a finalist (one of 10, but the only student) in the 2023 Northeastern Dairy Product Innovation Competition, which awarded him a $20,000 development grant. Gershon spent the summer fine-tuning spekld, culminating with a pop-up where he sold out his entire inventory. Stories You May Like Influencer Justine Doiron ’16 Cooks Up Healthy Comfort Food Hotelie’s Line of Plant-Based Fitness Drinks Goes National “People just really love the product,” he says. Senior year, he re-entered the Pitch Deck Competition—and won the $3,000 first prize. As one judge, business consultant Mark Maynard ’90, noted at the time: “The quality of the product and the quality of the presentation were aligned: they were equally excellent.” Now, Gershon is continuing to develop spekld through eLab, the University’s student start-up accelerator, and at Cornell’s Center of Excellence for Food and Agriculture in nearby Geneva. Ultimately, he hopes you’ll see spekld in your local supermarket’s dairy case, for use both in cooking and as a spread—possibly in various flavors, like cinnamon sugar. But, as he notes, there’s a hurdle to producing brown butter on an industrial scale. Tasters sampling his wares during the fall 2023 Pitch Deck Competition. (Provided) “The main concern right now is finding the equipment,” says Gershon, who’s minoring in computer science on top of his Hotel studies. “Coming in, I thought, ‘There are precooked products, like soups; it should be easy to throw butter in a pot, heat it, and be done.’ And that’s very far from the truth.” Brown butter, he explains, gets its distinctive notes from the “Maillard reaction,” a form of browning in which amino acids and certain sugars combine to create flavor compounds that tantalize your taste buds. Spekld can be an ingredient or a topping. (Provided) “That reaction optimally happens at around 280 degrees,” he says, “but a lot of current machinery is not equipped to go that high.” So Gershon is exploring alternatives, such as whether existing equipment could be modified, or if the butter could be cooked at a lower temperature, but for much longer. Says Gershon: “I think it’s at a turning point right now, where I have to figure out: Is there actually a scalable way to do this?” Top: Gershon in a CALS kitchen, with a platter of cupcakes topped with his signature "brown butter buttercream" frosting. (Ryan Young / Cornell University) Published April 4, 2024 Comments Sameer G 5 Apr, 2024 People are making and selling ghee commercially — maybe that equipment could be used for this too. Reply Kelly Roberts, Class of 1988 9 Apr, 2024 Incredible idea! Is this unsalted or salted butter? I always bake with unsalted, does it matter? I kind of wish you named it Freckled, with a cartoon of the founder as its logo 🙂 Good luck with your venture, Jonah! Reply Sid, Class of 2017 14 Apr, 2024 So … he’s just selling flavored ghee? Reply Rjp, Class of 2013 14 Apr, 2024 Ghee is clarified. Browned butter is not. They’re different. It’s not flavored ghee. Reply KAREN MADSEN, Class of 1973 14 Apr, 2024 This is a wonderful idea. Browned butter adds a luscious component to almost everything and this product would be very convenient, as well as saving a few batches of overly-browned butter. Reply Carol Bradford, Class of 1974 14 Apr, 2024 In classic French cooking brown butter (beurre noisette) doesn’t have specks. You let the browned bits of milk protein settle and then decant the clear brown butter. I alway thought that was wasteful and the brown bits do taste good. So good luck to Jonah Gershon and his new endeavor! Reply Leave a Comment Cancel replyOnce your comment is approved, your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Comment * Name * Class Year Email * Save my name, email, and class year in this browser for the next time I comment. Δ Other stories You may like Campus & Beyond CALS’ Beloved Apple Vending Machine Remains Fruit-Full Students For Student Veterans, Program House Offers a Home Base Quizzes & Puzzles Cornellian Crossword: ‘What’s the Scoop?’